Robert Redford by Michael Feeney Callan

Among the most widely admired Hollywood stars of his generation, Redford has appeared onstage and on-screen, in front of and behind the camera, earning Academy, Golden Globe, and a multitude of other awards and nominations for acting, directing, and producing, and for his contributions to the arts. His Sundance Film Festival transformed the world of filmmaking; his films defined a generation. America has come to know him as the Sundance Kid, Bob Woodward, Johnny Hooker, Jay Gatsby, and Roy Hobbs. But only now, with this revelatory biography, do we see the surprising and complex man beneath the Hollywood façade.

From Redford’s personal papers—journals, script notes, correspondence—and hundreds of hours of taped interviews, Michael Feeney Callan brings the legendary star into focus. Here is his scattered family background and restless childhood, his rocky start in acting, the death of his son, his star-making relationship with director Sydney Pollack, the creation of Sundance, his political activism, his artistic successes and failures, his friendships and romances. This is a candid, surprising portrait of a man whose iconic roles on-screen (Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, All the President’s Men, The Natural) and directorial brilliance (Ordinary People, Quiz Show) have both defined and obscured one of the most celebrated, and, until now, least understood, public figures of our time.

Michael Feeney Callan is the author of two novels-one of which won the Hennessy Literary Award-and several plays, as well as biographies of Anthony Hopkins, Richard Harris, Julie Christie, and Sean Connery. Previously he worked for BBC, ITV, Ireland's Ardmore studio, and PBS as writer, producer, and director of television dramas and documentaries.

Unrated Critic Reviews for Robert Redford

Kirkus Reviews

Callan offers intriguing insights into Redford’s film legacy, limning his complicated friendship with director and frequent collaborator Sydney Pollack, his uncredited contributions to the shaping of such signature vehicles as The Candidate and All the President’s Men, and Redford’s directorial s...

The Guardian

Actor, director, producer, conservationist, political activist and patron of independent cinema, Robert Redford has lived a formidably energetic life while continuing to look like the diffident, tousle-haired all-American boy next door.

The Wall Street Journal

The abdication from meaningful acting would be forgivable if his directorial career had been successful (see Eastwood), but Mr. Redford's output has been erratic—for every artistic success like "A River Runs Through It" there is a "Legend of Bagger Vance," "Lions for Lambs" (2007) or his new film...

New York Journal of Books

Not so that the reader can say that, upon closing the book, he does so with a greater knowledge of Mr. Redford than he had when he began reading.Robert Redford: The Biography is an exhaustive (all meanings of the word intended) look at Mr. Redford’s career, with special emphasis given to the fact...

Los Angeles Times

69 words Type of Material: Correction
Robert Redford: A review of "Robert Redford: The Biography" by Michael Feeney Callan in the May 16 Calendar section said that Redford had anchored the varsity pitching rotation with Don Drysdale at Van Nuys High School and earned a baseball scholarship at th...

Macleans

Documenting Redford’s impressive career, from Butch Cassidy to Ordinary People, Callan acknowledges a “disarray of failures—marriage, friendship and films.” But as wives and children come and go, along with one-line allusions to possible lovers such as Natalie Wood, there is scant detail.

Independent.ie

Bookmarks Magazine

The Topic: Irish biographer Michael Feeney Callan had unprecedented access to Robert Redford, as well as his friends, family, and colleagues, for this biography, which took more than a decade to complete.

North Jersey

Callan’s well-informed theories about what makes Redford tick creatively — a love-hate relationship with money and fame, the loss of key loved ones in his formative years — are enough to make an interesting book, but "Robert Redford" also includes anecdotes from film sets and from a sometimes com...

The Anniston Star

Early on Callan identifies a “significant pattern” in Robert Redford, that “with every peak of achievement came an act of withdrawal.” So, for now, Robert Redford: The Biography is the best we have: a well-documented, well-written, non-sensationalistic portrait of a public figure known best from ...